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Finally, it is time to share the complete journey of the bathroom renovation. The truth is that it has been finished for months, but I have been too lazy to put together the video.

Eventually, this will be our guest bathroom but for the time being it is our only bathroom. This is a very small space but shows how making smart decisions can create a feeling of space. The large tiles and colour palette really help. This was also all done for less that 25 000SEK ($4000), which including all tapware, porcelain, floor heating is quite an achievement.

So we did everything, new pipes, floor heating, waterproofing, tiles etc etc etc. One might say it is a slight improvement… It is amazing what you can do when you want to! 🙂

So here is the before and after. Be prepared to be impressed! 🙂

The process from beginning to end… be warned my filming can cause dizziness:

Leading up to this day, I was nervous. We have a block of land that isn’t really ‘digger friendly’ and many people were skeptical about whether is was even possible to drive a digger up to the house given the steep, uneven ground. So instead of hiring a professional digging company, we decided to give it a go ourselves with the help of someone to drive the digger. Sounds like a genius idea, right?

Actually, we didn’t really have to put in new drainage, we don’t have a problem with damp but it could happen in the future with a sub-terrain house so we thought that doing it now, while the garden is already a disaster is much better than doing it later.

So yesterday, this was delivered: This morning, Johan, a colleague of Fredrik’s came to drive this bad boy and get digging. I went out with Lina and Elliot, as I was nervous and while I was out, this happened:

Yep… the digger had sprung a leak so the mechanics had to come out and fix it. Despite being fixed and every effort to get it up the hill, it wasn’t happening, so the only option was to go up the stairs, like this:

So, a visit from the mechanics and a set of stairs later (and plenty of swearing from Johan) and we made it past one obstacle, we were on the house level. Next obstacle to get around the back. Next was a couple of hours of this:

After a near miss with the house, there was a hallelujah moment:

SUCCESS! But the reality was it was now 17:00 and the digging for drainage hadn’t begun. Oh well… the boys got cracking and I continued hiding out inside watching The Real Housewives of Melbourne.

One of the things I said to Fredrik about doing the drainage is that I really didn’t want to lose these beautiful rhododendron bushes:

I popped out to see how they were going and this is what I see:

They were the next victims of the drainage. But actually, they did try to save them but despite all efforts to move them, this is what was left:

So…. while I sit here and write this blog they are out there digging away. Such dedication, I am very impressed. I would have given up at the mechanic….

When I look back at photos it is hard to believe that not so many months ago, this was the back of the house:

Now it is this:

I am pretty proud of what we are doing, just wait until my next update about the interior… it is going to be a dream! 🙂

So our first fully renovated room is nearly complete. I have been documenting the whole process so once it is done, I will do a complete blog about it, but it is getting exciting so I wanted to share a sneak peak. This was before, inside the door on the right:

The tiles are now nearly all in place, just some grout, mirror, finishing of the fine details like corners and below are the basin, tap, shower head and toilet we have bought which will soon be installed… wiiiihaaaa!

We have been going back and forth a bit with the Lerum Kommun (local council) since moving in about a tree that covers most of the front of our house, is HUGE, unhealthy and that the entire neighbourhood has wanted removed for years. For me, I wasn’t so sure at first because I liked the privacy but a beautiful 100 year old Oak tree was hidden behind these tree and it kept our house in the shade for the whole morning and made the front garden feel very damp.

It looked like this, and this is after it was trimmed back once by the council a couple of weeks ago:

The council told us to take it down was no problems, but it was just that we would have to pay for it… gee, thanks!

Anyway, we found a company called Edsås Träd och Underhåll who were super helpful and gave us the best price to take it down and remove everything (apart from the wood which we will use in our fireplace). So on Thursday morning they two people came by to take it down, and holy shitball!!!! It makes an amazing difference, it is probably the best thing we have done so far.

It was really cool to watch the guys take the tree down bit by bit, so I made a short video…

I haven’t posted much lately about the work inside of the house, mainly because we haven’t done much the last couple of weeks, though soon enough I will be posting with the results of our bathroom renovation! 🙂 Here is a sneak peak:

So it has been a while between blog posts and house updates. Unfortunate circumstances meant I had to take off to Australia for a few weeks, leaving Fredrik to move us in to the new house and keep the renovations happening. Of course he has been doing an absolutely amazing job (as always). His Dad spent a lot of time here while I was away to help him and the progress has been great and the quality of work is second to none. His poor Dad had to sleep in the kitchen!! That is commitment!

Now that our holidays have started it is time to really get cracking. We move in to the house in 3 weeks, so we need to make the inside a little bit more livable. We have prioritised one room downstairs which will be our temporary bedroom so we have done a quick paint job and thrown in some cheap floorboards. All experienced renovators tell us a fresh bedroom is REALLY important, so we have listened.

Sometimes it feels overwhelming, but we just need to keep focused and take it one step at a time.

Check out the photos of our progress:

The temporary bedroom:

Before:

Is Fredrik renovating or Breaking Bad with Heisenberg?

It is a bit hot in plastic overalls:

Filling up the holes:

A coat of paint:Floorboards in:

Just some skirting boards left and we can sleep in here… oh… and a new light!!

Some other happenings on the constructions site have included:

Deliveries galore from Beijer:

A much anticipated bin, the amount of rubbish is just ridiculous!

Fredrik aka McGyver decided to make it easier to get stuff in the bin so instead of walking down the stairs, he constructed this little platform for us to throw the rubbish from. The boy is a genius.

Today we went to take some measurements of the house and sign some papers to pay the deposit… YIKES! Now that I have the measurements I decided to try to mock up some 3D plans which are to scale, or close to.

Below is my first attempt at making 3D plans, click on the images to enlarge. I haven’t even started on designing downstairs yet, upstairs is our priority! This program is called www.floorplanner.com and is super fun but takes some time and practice. There is also the 2D version I created with this program shown below, basically you create this first and then it generates the 3D images.

March 28th, 2013 Fredrik and I took a massive step, we bought our first home. Sure, it is not our dream home, but we decided to try to enter the market at an affordable level and not get in to debt up to our eyeballs. We wanted something we could renovate that was in a good area, with good transport in the town. The market is down right now, so it is a buyers market and we think we got quite a bargain and think it will pay off in time.

With Fredrik’s skills and connections we thought it could be a great project for us an opportunity to create something awesome and showcase our skills. We have a little renovation experience from renovating a boat in 2012, which we plan to have completely finished by the time we move in. We really like working together and think we are a good team, Fredrik can build just about anything and I am the one who is planning, budgeting and trying to keep things on track. Some might say I am the boss (or b*tch… it depend who you ask).

The structure of the house is in good shape, it is build in the 50’s and the layout is very closed and old fashioned, plus it is WAY too brown and the wood panels make me quiver. We have big plans… WATCH THIS SPACE.

We get the keys on June 31st, so our next few blog posts will be about our plans. Then once we get the keys, the real blogs will start, we hope to share the transformations, how to’s, ups and downs. There will be plenty of drama to share, everyone who knows me is expecting that!!

About the house:

Built: 1959

Size: 150 m2

Land size: 1352 m2

Location: Stenkullen, Lerum. A suburb outside Gothenburg, Sweden. 20 minutes commute in to the city centre.